Melbourne Cricket Club president and businessman Michael Happell played club cricket in his time but there’s a lesser-known sport he’s been a powerhouse in globally for decades: real tennis.
The former PwC director and Supra Capital chair has played the Royal game, rather than the garden-variety form, since his university days and has been in love with it ever since.
Lawn tennis as we now know it evolved out of real or Royal tennis in the 1880s.
The latter is played on an area the size of a normal tennis court but requires a huge building with four-storey-high walls and elaborate detailing, which would likely cost up to $2 million to build.
A keen squash player, Happell was lured to the exclusive Royal Melbourne Tennis Club as a young man.
MCC president Michael Happell is not just a fan of cricket, but of Royal tennis.Credit: Golding
“It’s the old, original game of tennis, what was tennis for 800 years before normal tennis was invented, and still played by a very keen and active group around the world,” he told CBD.
“I just fell for it hook, line and sinker very quickly,” he said.
“In my younger days I was one of the top-ranked players in the world.”
This month he’s off to the New York Racquet and Tennis Club to defend his Masters title, shaping up against some of the world’s best in the over 55s category.
Far more exciting, one would think, than dealing with endless media queries about the rabbit terrine that felled MCC diners in a food poisoning outbreak on Anzac Day.
An education in profit
IDP Education boss Andrew Barkla has presided over a rapid rise in the company's share price this year.Credit: Wayne Taylor
Here we were thinking no-one had heard of Chi-X, the newest alternative to the Australian Securities Exchange, let alone ever used it. Wrong.
Someone’s been using it to place big bets on IDP Education, the listed international education services outfit chaired by former Colonial and Commonwealth Bank executive Peter Polson and half-owned by this country’s largest universities.
Tuesday’s trade, a few hours before the market closed, was interesting for two reasons.
First, it was enormous: at $25 million, it was more than twice the average number of shares that would be bought and sold in the company on any normal day.
And second, it came the day before IDP chief executive Andrew Barkla was due to present at the Macquarie investor conference at Sydney’s Sheraton on the Park.
By the end of the day, whoever had now become one of the largest shareholders in the education outfit was up more than $730,000.
To be honest, it’s hard to blame them for taking a punt on IDP.
Since January, the share price has spiked by 60 per cent.
Suited and sighted
Spotted this week: Cesar Melhem in the atelier of upmarket Collins Street tailor Anthony Squires.
The Upper House MP, a close ally of Labor leader Bill Shorten who Melhem succeeded as head of the Australian Workers Union, has had a quiet year since the Registered Organisation Commission commenced civil action against him and his union for allegedly contravening the Fair Work Act.
The commission has accused Melhem of inflating the AWU’s membership by more than 2000 people.
Merry dance
Melbourne International Arts Festival artistic director Jonathan Holloway is moving on.Credit: Eddie Jim
The merry-go-round of Australia’s artistic directors is cranking up again with the Melbourne International Art Festival’s new leader set to be announced imminently.
Many are sad to see energetic Englishman Jonathan Holloway depart after almost a decade on our shores but the show must go on.
Holloway’s Perth Festival successor Wendy Martin has wrapped her final program but seems keen to stay put in Western Australia.
Brisbane Festival chief David Berthold’s contract was extended to a fifth year to deliver the 2019 festival, which may leave him a free agent thereafter.
Gideon Obarzanek, who has been a gun for hire since leaving Chunky Move, the acclaimed dance company he founded, has also been suggested by those in the know.
And there’s another potential candidate right under the festival’s nose: its executive director Kath Mainland, a former Edinburgh Fringe chief executive.
And the wild cards? Tom Supple and Hannah Fox, who have worked with Melbourne Festival, Dark Mofo, Tate Modern and Glastonbury Festival; ex-Arts Centre Melbourne programmer Dan Clarke, now at Brisbane’s QPAC; and chanteuse and Supersense curator Sophia Brous.
Watch this space.
Samantha Hutchinson is on leave.